TROY – Gov. Pat Quinn has taken part in a ceremony honoring a U.S. Air Force airman killed in southern Afghanistan.

A Silver Star medal was presented Saturday to the family of Senior Airman Bradley Smith, who was killed in January 2010 in Kandahar Province.

Smith was part of a patrol that came under an attack in which a colleague triggered a makeshift bomb. Smith led the wounded airmen to safety and volunteered to recover the body of one of those who was killed. He did so, but was then killed in another explosion.